I have a backlog of books to review, never forgetting the epic ‘to be read’ bookcase (aka where GJ plays librarian). So in an effort to clear it, I’m experimenting with reviewing each book in under 200 words, excluding the key book info.

The reviews will also post at 8.30am. Not because I’m free to post then, I’m not. Just for consistency.

I have 1669 bookmarks saved to del.ico.us, complete with a tagging system. I use RSS feeds of particular tabs to feed content to this website. I’ve exported the lot and now I need a new online bookmarking service.

Here’s the spec:

Essential

online, accessible via Firefox and IE

user-defined tags

RSS feeds for tags as well as account

full backup to CSV file

no flash elements to the site

Optional

Firefox bookmarklet

comment space

iPhone app version

I don’t want a microblogging site like tumblr, just straightforward online bookmarking. So, any suggestions out there? Pinboard? What else?

(And they’d better not bugger up flickr. I might go and back it up in case…)

I’m sorry. I’m really sorry. I just used a Manics song as a post title. If you now have this as an earworm, I can only apologise.

I’ve had a tumblr account for ages but haven’t been able to work out what to use it for. Basic link library? I already have del.icio.us. Microblogging? Twitter. Blogging? You’re reading it.

Finally, I might have worked out how to channel one of my interests into it and it’s going to be a daily post featuring a design I like. It might be a print, or a object, or clothes. I’m planning to feature UK designers as much as possible although the first week is heavy on the etsy as a quick way to get started.

These aren’t necessarily things that fit some objective view of ‘good design’. I may have done design history at university, and have some very fat books on modernism on the shelves, but I’m actually pretty eclectic in what I like. And the tumblr will be stuff I like and that you might like as well.

At school, we had a weekly English class in condensing text. It was in the days of O-levels, OK? They also made us read Hardy which is really uncalled for. I was rubbish. I’d submit stories in creative writing that were 1800 words instead of 800 (a Marlowe pastiche – Philip, not Kit). Then I discovered the drabble: stories told in exactly 100 words, no more, no less. You really have to condense to make 100 words tell a story. Cutting adjectives, finding tighter phrasing, understanding colons. All of those came from drabbling. I recommend it to people as good practice.

Tonight I found I have a new favourite editing warm-up. 140 characters, inc. punctuation. If you want to learn to edit sharply, get twitter.